Hi, I have booked economy flex for JNB-DXB-VIE that I already upgraded to business with 50000 points. Right now the booking naturally (before OLCI) shows that I can not upgrade with miles nor purchase upgrade to F. I know that at the airport & on the plane upgrades are available if seats are free but is there fixed price, at least for the miles from J to F? Thank you

It depends on what J bucket you are currently in (if you started from Y Flex it�s probably J Flex, but the 50K miles sort of threw me as that suggests a Y Flex+ to J Flex+ upgrade). The miles required is available in the mileage calculator (under �Loyalty� on the website). I think this will only work on an �on board� upgrade as the official rule is that you can only upgrade one cabin with miles. The �on board� workaround is well known (but AFAIK not published), whether or not it works at the check in desk I simply don�t know. If you try, can you please let us know the outcome. Such data points are helpful for others.

Got you, one ticket is upgraded eco flex for 55k instead of 67k? where I just got some kind of deal, the other ticket is flex plus. Would love upgrade at least the later leg as it is day time and nice 7 hours in the air. Will report next week.

OK, upgrade DXB-VIE from JFlex is 44850 miles, from JFlex+ it�s 39000.
Availability in F for the next 7 days looks quite promising (although this may change quickly, difficult to predict) EK127 on Saturday looks bad, all other flights are F4A4.
Good luck!

Thank you, I am doing the math right now and it looks like it is better to refund, buy biz and upgrade to F with these miles for the whole journey (it is available). The difference between eco flex and biz is something like 30k ZAR so I think it it a little bit better value (I would have to buy the miles for upgrade the leg from J to F anyway since we are far away from FF on EK and we dont have any CC that has partnership with EK but traveling with my father so F for fun would be nice).

JNB-VIE is 57500 from Flex and 50000 from Flex+. Flex+ is usually significantly more expensive than Flex, so you need to offset that against 7500 extra miles you need to buy.

But beware! To get the 'through rate', you need availability on BOTH legs. What you can do, is upgrade one leg first (you mentioned JNB/DXB is available) but to then upgrade DXB/VIE you need to speak to an agent (or do it via direct chat) and tell them that you want the through rate. They will then cancel the existing upgrade and simultaneously upgrade you at the better rate. You CANNOT do this via Manage My Booking and also not at the airport or on board, in that case you will be charged the miles for DXB/VIE on top of what you have already paid! And upgrades starting or ending in DXB are much more expensive than 'through bookings' (85800 from Flex+ if I'm not mistaken) . There are even routes (not in South Africa, I think) where you would get the second leg 'free'! My usual route is between CPT and London (preferably LGW) and I have done this 'through booking in two steps' multiple times.

Good advice, as always, from thijsseh.

Luckily for 747jetter, it looks like upgrades from business to first (both legs) are available every day next week plus EK has some promo going on with respect to the miles needed (48,875/42500 flex/flex+). And the business ticket isn't expensive to begin with...... Happy flying!

Any help how to speed up miles refund for rebooked flight? We postponed by one day our flight from JNB....agent promising yes, both of us would be upgraded to J...after rebooking my dad stays in economy...sorry, now not possible...within a minute. His flights are in economy but I see the upgrade available in MMB for that 50k. But the miles aren't back. Have to say I have never experienced worthless customer care agent than Ms Sophia....

Try calling again and see if they can try to expedite the refund. No guarantees...

I had a similar issue. Used direct chat and miles were there 24 hour later. I generally find direct chat to be more effective than calling.